World First Travel Insurance Blog

The exams are over and summer holidays are here again. Well, for some of us anyway. If you’re a student and you’re kicking your heals wondering what on earth you’re going to do for the next year because you deferred going to university, you may well consider taking a gap year off and seeing the world. It’s a unique opportunity, you’re young, healthy (hopefully) and enthusiastic. Here’s a few tips and guides to help you make it a success. (more…)

If you’ve travelled recently, are travelling or are planning to travel, you could be forgiven for being a little confused.

The ash has been coming back in the last couple of weeks but only to the edge of Europe. Frustrating if you live in Belfast, Dublin or Gran Canaria, but it didn’t cause the same major problems as it did across the whole of Europe a month or so ago (and hey, if it means me staying a few more days in Gran Canaria, where’s the factor 50!). (more…)

The recent announcement that travel insurance is now compulsory if you’re travelling to Cuba or if you’re a Cuban national going back home makes another tip to addto the list of things to think of when you’re travelling to such a great destination.  This list is of course just a selection. Do you have any more to add to it?

1. Learn Spanish (or go with someone who can speak Spanish) – even with some basic language skills you’ll appreciate the trip even more. And Cubans will appreciate you making the effort. (more…)

Cuba’s one of those places I’ve always wanted to go to. During the years of continued support from the Soviet Union and other Eastern Block countries and the US trade embargo, tourism was a largely ignored and underdeveloped sector. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in the last ten years or so, it has expanded exponentially. (more…)

To paraphrase LP Hartley’s famous line from The Go-Between, “Abroad is a foreign country, they do things differently there”. Recent cases of people getting into trouble have highlighted in the media the need to be very careful when travelling. It’s amazing how many people just don’t do basic research into the places they go to, or just assume either that they can do just like they do at home or, if they do get into trouble, the British Embassy will get them out of it (note: they won’t). (more…)

Many of you have already booked or will be booking beach holidays for the summer. For the vast majority, everything will fine and you’ll come back relaxed and ready to go. We’ve all seen the seaside rescue programmes on TV though and they act as a reminder that the beach and the sea do present some dangers. Here’s a guide how to how to stay safe. Most of it is common sense, but these things need to be said.

Avoid sunburn

No amount of information about the dangers of over-exposure to the sun seems to prevent us from flocking to the beach to fry all day long and come away looking like a ripe lobster (I know, lobsters can’t be ripe, but you get the image). Sitting on the beach all day is fine, but protect yourself from UVA and UVB rays with factor 20+ water-proof sunblock. Avoid the sun at the warmest times of the day between 11 and 3. Believe me, even at 4 in the afternoon, a beach on the Mediterranean can be a pretty warm place. And don’t forget your hat (do I sound like your mother? Unfortunately she was right). (more…)

In an occasional series of interviews, we’ll be asking members of the World First team and beyond, a number of questions about their travel experiences. Today, it’s the turn of the Editor (well, we’ve got to start somewhere!).

First holiday memory

My father worked for British Railways (as it still was at the time) so from the early 1960s, the cheap travel gave us the opportunity to go to a relatively under-developed part of Spain where I first experienced a sunny beach. (more…)

Whilst there are far fewer ads on the TV than there used to be, the holiday booking season is upon us. It’s time for our annual flock to the sun in search of a little time out of the rat race. So where are we going? It seems that the Costas are (finally) on the wane and our tastes are increasingly diversified. ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents) has just released its report on travel trends for 2010. They make interesting reading and show how fashions have changed in the last 10 years or so. (more…)

Benny was really happy. He’d just come away from the Big Travel Agent in the High Street after booking his cruise with the Big Tour Operator. He was going to take his wife on a once in a lifetime cruise around the Caribbean. Everything was included, the entertainment, the meals and even a couple of excursions. He’d got his eye on trying some scuba diving for the first time in his life. His wife was looking forward to playing some tennis on the ship’s deck but was wondering how that was done without losing a lot of wayward balls in the sea.

Later that evening, he took a closer look at the documents. He had a particular look at the invoice. There were a lot of figures on it and, to be honest, he didn’t understand them all. One however did jump out. Insurance £103.34. He was flabbergasted. That was not much less than he’d paid to insure his car for a whole year! (more…)

Since British regulations on where you could get married were relaxed there’s been a steady growth in people wanting to get hitched in the four corners of the world – and taking there guests with them. The British embassy in the country where you want to get married will be your first port of call for information on tying the knot, but you’d be well-advised to:

• Contact the local authorities in the country for more detailed and practical advice – here’s a list of foreign embassies in the UK
• Find out what specific documents those local authorities require. They may take months to prepare and you really don’t want to turn up at the alter to find you haven’t got your granny’s birth certificate or some other obscure document.
• Check if you need visas to enter the country. British passport holders can go to 152 countries so you’ll probably have most of your ideal destinations covered, but some places such as Australia and the United States require some formalities before you leave. (more…)